Murder, Mayhem, and Mysteries in the Arctic: A Conversation with Attorney and ‘A Gift Before Dying’ Author Malcolm Kempt

Summary

Murder Sheet: “Murder, Mayhem, and Mysteries in the Arctic: A Conversation with Attorney and ‘A Gift Before Dying’ Author Malcolm Kempt”

Release Date: January 20, 2026
Hosts: Áine Cain (journalist) & Kevin Greenlee (attorney)
Guest: Malcolm Kempt, former Nunavut criminal defense attorney, author of A Gift Before Dying

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Murder Sheet delves into the gritty realities of crime and justice in the Canadian Arctic through a candid conversation with Malcolm Kempt, who served as a defense attorney in Nunavut for 17 years before penning his debut crime novel, A Gift Before Dying. The discussion explores Kempt’s legal career, systemic issues facing far-north communities, unique courtroom stories, and the intertwining of lived experience with fiction. Kempt also shares insights into resource scarcity, social cycles of victimization, and the burden shouldered by legal professionals, all with a sharp sense of empathy and realism.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Life and Work in Nunavut’s Remote Arctic (03:25 – 08:08)

• Malcolm’s Unusual Path North: Initially with no plans for a legal career, Kempt wound up in Nunavut after sending a quirky job application.
  • “I did everything you’re not supposed to do. I put in a resume on colored paper. I had a picture of myself in the snow with it... Out of like 400 people, I got the job.” (03:45 – 04:15)
• Nunavut Overview:
  • Isolated, vast, and sparsely populated—some communities as small as 150 people (05:29–06:07).
  • Barren, arctic desert landscape; little vegetation; 24-hour daylight/dark seasons.
  • Adjusting to perpetual daylight is harder than enduring the long darkness.
    • “The hardest part for me was the summer... You get up to use the washroom at 2 in the morning and your brain sees the light coming in and thinks, oh, it’s daytime.” (07:29)

---

Empathy for Clients & The Human Side of Crime (08:08 – 13:22)

• Kempt’s Ethos: Even the perpetrators of violent, unfathomable crimes are rarely “monsters”; their crimes often emerge from cycles of abuse, addiction, isolation, and poverty.
  • “Most of the people, once you sit down with them and talk to them for a long time, you begin to realize that’s why they are the way they are. It doesn’t excuse what they’ve done... I’ve met, out of the thousands of people I’ve dealt with, maybe three people who... were unredeemable.” (09:16 – 11:08)
• Cycle of Victimization: Many offenders were once, and still are, victims themselves; high rates of substance abuse and a lack of resources perpetuate crime.
• Frontline Burnout: High rates of fatigue, mental health crises, and substance abuse among both community members and professionals.
  • Kempt’s coping strategy: take breaks, focus on small victories to find meaning (12:30).

---

Systemic Issues Undermining Justice & Wellbeing (13:22 – 14:44, 27:54–28:21)

• Resource Scarcity:
  • Geographic isolation, staffing shortages, language barriers, and limited infrastructure hinder the provision of addiction and mental health services.
  • No easy governmental fix; “complicated issues layered one on top of the other.” (13:48)
• Media Misrepresentation:
  • Oversimplification in news coverage does a disservice; true causes are deeply complex and intertwined (28:13).
    • “Every time you read about the new territory in the news, I feel like they try to oversimplify things and say this is the problem... when in reality, it’s an incredibly complicated problem on so many levels.” (27:54–28:19)

---

Life and Courtroom Stories from the Arctic Justice System (19:01–26:54)

• Relations with Police: Many northern police officers start careers there to access other postings, not as “punishment.” Jobs are stressful but well-compensated (19:48–20:42).
• RCMP as Sole Law Enforcement: No local/tribal police; community constables sometimes assist (21:00).
• “Air Justice” Circuit Courts: Courts literally fly into remote communities several times a year. Courtrooms set up anywhere available—school gyms, janitor closets, even bathrooms (22:09–23:27).
  • “Everyone would fly in together on a small plane... We used to joke it was Air Justice.” (22:09–22:40)
• Court Closely-Knit: Prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and police all work in tight quarters; sometimes the jailer is needed to refuel the court’s plane (23:33–23:57).
• On Eyewitness Reliability:
  • Striking story of a shooting case where all the eyewitnesses corroborated an event that never happened—with strong sensory detail (like “smelling gunpowder”)—yet forensic evidence proved otherwise.
    • “Truth is a really slippery fish. In reality, our memories are so malleable... by the end of it, I thought, wow, she’s very convincing. But it turned out she’s fabricated the whole thing.” (24:13–26:54)

---

Social Issues: Suicide, Addiction, and Youth Crime (31:45–39:13)

• Suicide Epidemic:
  • Particularly among young people; described as "almost to the level now where it's an epidemic." Resources ill-equipped to handle outbreaks. (32:04)
  • “I've had coworkers, I've had clients in the middle of hearings commit suicide. I've had friends. It's just constant.” (32:04)
• Counselor Burnout: Not just a community crisis—frontline personnel also struggle and succumb to trauma, addiction, or suicide.
• Alcohol and Drugs:
  • Widespread binge drinking and increasing drug problem (meth, cocaine, pills smuggled by daily flights with inventive concealment). (34:03–35:22)
    • “If I drank [a] 40-ounce bottle I couldn’t get off the floor... But now you’re seeing the drugs, especially in a cal, meth is in, coke is in, these, the harder drugs are moving in.” (34:03–34:49)
  • Regulation is complex, inconsistently enforced due to lack of resources, not lack of laws. (35:36–36:22)
• Youth Criminality:
  • Under-12 offenders cannot be prosecuted; resources for family intervention are lacking. Children sometimes involved in distressingly serious incidents (38:13–39:13).

---

Reflections on Burnout and Transition to Writing (39:14–44:34)

• Leaving Nunavut: Covid-era travel restrictions made work impossible; burnout and remote hearings accelerated departure; writing was a long-simmering passion.
  • “At one point, I was traveling to the north and I was spending two weeks in a hotel room every time I wanted to do any surf work. So I felt like I was in a jail cell.” (39:21)
• Creative Journey:
  • Years of workshopping, short story publication, and pivoting material written over a decade into a cohesive novel during pandemic isolation.
  • Advice from agent Gideon Pine helped—"more heart" (46:00) and tighter narrative focus. Hard work, re-drafting, and targeted revision led to A Gift Before Dying's publication.

---

Blending Reality and Fiction—A Gift Before Dying (41:54–47:50)

• Novel’s Setting and Themes:
  • Explores burnout, unforgiving environment, and the search for hope/redemption amid darkness.
    • “It’s about hope in a really dark place, I think is the big theme in it.” (47:01)
• Characterization:
  • Lead detective is an amalgamation of many “Cole” types seen in the north—burned-out, searching for meaning.
  • Parallel stories of a failed adult investigator and a grieving child both seeking justice and redemption.

---

Literary and Pop Culture Tastes (48:35–51:05)

• Comics Fandom: Kempt is a lifelong comic reader (from classic Marvel to modern noir horror like Criminal and Fatale); credits comic shops as foundational in his youth.
• True Detective & Noir Influences: First season of True Detective was a major inspiration for the brooding tone of his novel.

---

What’s Next? (51:05–51:53)

• Upcoming Work:
  • A new detective story in a different setting—“police procedural, some supernatural undertones... a complicated mystery”—in progress.

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Most of the people, once you sit down with them and talk to them for a long time, you begin to realize that’s why they are the way they are. It doesn’t excuse what they’ve done… but I don't think that they're wholly unredeemable.” — Malcolm Kempt (09:16)
• “Truth is a really slippery fish. In reality, our memories are so malleable. Right. It's all very fragile.” — Malcolm Kempt (24:13)
• “You want to help people... but you're stuck working in this glacial, moving, broken machine. And that's the really difficult part.” — Malcolm Kempt (27:04)
• “It’s about hope in a really dark place, I think is the big theme in it.” — Malcolm Kempt, on his novel (47:01)

---

Important Segments & Timestamps

• 03:25 – 08:08: Life and law practice in Nunavut
• 08:08 – 13:22: Empathy, the cycle of victimization, and burnout
• 19:01 – 23:27: Policing, circuit courts, and “Air Justice”
• 24:13 – 26:54: Eyewitness fallibility story
• 31:45 – 39:13: Social crises: suicide, youth crime, addiction
• 39:14 – 44:34: Burnout, the pandemic, and shift to writing
• 46:00 – 47:50: Shaping A Gift Before Dying for publication
• 48:35 – 51:05: Comics, noir influences, and small talk
• 51:05 – 51:53: Tease for next novel

---

Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode is somber, reflective, yet shot through with empathy, dark wit, and affection for marginalized places and people. The hosts offer space for Kempt to unpack the complexities of arctic justice, never shying from the devastating personal toll of the work or the deeply entrenched social problems.

---

For those who crave unvarnished insight into life and crime on the far edge of civilization—filtered through the eyes of a sharp, compassionate observer—this episode delivers. And for fans of bleak, character-driven mysteries in striking settings, A Gift Before Dying should be on your radar.

Transcript

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why choose a Sleep Number Smart bed?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Can I make my site softer? Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep Number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, faces and more limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards check it out at the Sleep Number Store or SleepNumber.com today.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm Kevin and we're here to talk with Malcolm Kempt, who served as an attorney for years in the Canadian Arctic. And now he's written a great book called A Gift Before Dying.

[Anya Cain]

Content Warning this episode contains discussion of rape, sexual abuse, crimes against and committed by children, addiction, suicide and murder. Malcolm Kempt traveled to one of the coldest, most isolated communities on planet Earth. And there he witnessed horrific things. He defended men and women accused of crimes both banal and brutal.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Malcolm worked as a criminal lawyer in Canada's Nunavut territory. That area is vast, the world's fifth largest country subdivision. It is also remote and isolated as the world's least densely populated country subdivision. Despite that, crime is rampant up there. It leads Canada in violent crime severity.

[Anya Cain]

Malcolm spent 17 years up there in the Arctic trying cases, defending clients. Then he quit and wrote a crime novel.

[Kevin Greenlee]

His terrific new book, A Gift Before Dying, is a mystery set in the Canadian Arctic. It is the story of a haunted police investigator searching for answers in a young girl's mysterious death. It takes a searing look at a community that is isolated, troubled, but full of heart. Reading it made us feel like we dropped down into a frigid new world.

It was terrific.

[Anya Cain]

We sat down with Malcolm recently to talk about his career in the law, his experience with crime in Nunavut, the systemic issues in play that causes such levels of crime, some wild things that he's seen during trials, and of course, A Gift Before Dying. My name is Anya Cain, I'm a journalist.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I'm Kevin Greenlee, an attorney.

[Anya Cain]

And this is the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

We're the Murder Sheet and this is.

[Anya Cain]

Murder, Mayhem and Mysteries in the Arctic. A conversation with attorney and A Gift Before Dying author, Malcolm Kempt.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sam.

[Anya Cain]

I guess to start off with Malcolm, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sure. I was a lawyer in the Canadian Arctic for 17 years. Originally from eastern Canada. But I went up there after law school. I went up for a year. I was only supposed to be there on a one year contract. And I ended up staying for almost two decades doing work because it just. Everything worked out. It's perfect. Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What drove you to go into the law?

[Malcolm Kempt]

It's funny, I had no interest in being a lawyer. And then I wrote the LSAT when the test, the standardized test, with a friend of mine who really wanted to get into law school, and she failed. And I did really well. I got in and I had no intention of being a lawyer. When I graduated, I was working in publishing, and not publishing books, but doing other stuff with magazines. And I wanted to do that. And I ended up getting this job. I applied for the job in the Arctic, and I did everything you're not supposed to do. I put in a resume on colored paper. I had a picture of myself in the snow with it. And I got the interview just based on that. They told me, they said, we wanted to know who this person was. And they sent a picture. And then out of like 400 people, I got the job. And it was supposed to be for 12 months, like I said. And then almost two decades later, I was still working there.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What made you decide to apply for a job in the Arctic that's not on the top of a lot of people's lists?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, everybody was applying for jobs in the big cities with the big firms, and I had no interest in any of that. And then I saw this job, and it was described almost as a guinea pig position where they were creating a law school for indigenous people. And so they wanted a lawyer from southern Canada who wasn't indigenous to be like the pilot project for this. And they were going to figure out all the glitches in the system before they started putting Indigenous people through it. So I said, oh, that sounds interesting. And you get to travel the north and you would get to, you know, do all kinds of interesting work. And it was criminal law primarily, which I thought was exciting. So never thought I'd get it.

[Anya Cain]

But I want to ask you, you know, just for our non Canadian listeners and just listeners who may not be super familiar with this region, can you tell us about the Canadian Arctic and like, what. What does that encompass? And maybe kind of scene set a little bit?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sure. So basically, once upon a time, everything to the east of Alaska over, or actually from the Yukon over to Greenland, would have been the Northwest Territories. In the late 90s, they divided it into the Northwest Territories and the Nunavut. Territory. The Nunavut territory was where I was working. But yeah, it's basically the whole Arctic above the majority of Canada is the Nunavut territory. It's massive and it includes everything right up to the top. And I've been as far up as Greece Fjord, which is the highest community in North America. And that's only, I think there's 350 people there, so quite high. Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

I do want to ask you when, when it comes to, you know, what this looks like, I think a lot of people picture Arctics just snow everywhere and I guess what, what is it really like up there? What do these communities look like? Are they larger? Are there any larger cities? Is it more just kind of dispersed, smaller communities?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, Caluit is the capital and they call it a city. But really I think when I got there it was 6,000 people. It might be closer to 8,000 now. I'm not sure. Some of the communities are as small as 150 people. 250 people. The majority of them are less than 2,000 people. I think almost all of them are quite small. It's a desert environment which a lot of people don't realize. They think, oh, Alaska, it's got lakes and trees and mountains and Nunavut has no vegetation. There's nothing. There's basically lichens, a few small plants and that's it. It's pretty barren. So that is snow covered for most of the year and then they have a short melt period in the summertime. Even in the high Arctic you get the melt and it becomes quite muddy because there's no vegetation. And then snows again. We do it all over again. And a lot of the High Arctic is 24 hour light. 24 hour darkness. It's not so bad down low. But once you get up into the higher communities, it gets totally dark for long periods of time.

[Anya Cain]

What was it like adjusting to that?

[Malcolm Kempt]

The hardest part for me was the summer. It's the 24 hour daylight is far more difficult. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Insomnia. It's. Yeah. Where the cop goes crazy in the sunlight. It's hard. You get up to use the washroom at 2 in the morning and your brain sees the light coming in and thinks, oh, it's daytime. And then you can't get back to sleep. And it's also very strange because it just never gets dark. Whereas in the winter you can sleep anytime because your body thinks it's nighttime. So it's not so difficult. Yeah. All of it is very strange. Your circadian rhythms get completely out of whack, but it's manageable.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Criminal lawyers, of course, see a lot of terrible things. And I wanted to talk about that, and I wanted to start by actually quoting something you wrote in your review of a documentary. You wrote, there are no monsters up there. That's what I tell people when they ask me about my career as a criminal defense lawyer, and none of it. In over a decade of flying in and out of the territory's isolated communities, I've seen the aftermath of many heinous crimes. Mothers burning their children with cigarettes, home invasion, rapes, kids torturing animals, domestic assaults that end in death. And I've spent a lot of time in confined spaces talking with the people who committed them. Nunavut has one of the highest violent crime rates per capita in the world. But I've met very few criminals who are wholly unredeemed, redeemable. And I would say, first of all, it occurs to me that that sort of empathy that you display there is a very good quality for a defense lawyer or a novelist to have. But I also have to ask, how can you find redeemable qualities in people who commit such heinous acts?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, I think the important thing that people have to realize, people always ask me, they say, how can you represent murderers and rapists and all these terrible people? But the important thing that you have to realize is that these crimes don't happen in a vacuum and that they're not without a reason. And most of the people who I've interviewed over the years in prison cells or, you know, in. In mental institutions who have been charged with these terrible crimes, describe to me lives that are almost equally as. As terrible. And you can understand, once you understand their life and once you talk to them for a while, how they became the terrible people that they are now. And a lot of times they're not terrible people. They've just made incredibly terrible choices or they've gotten themselves into situations where they're dealing with substance abuse and alcohol issues. And if you have no anger management skills, you've been sexually abused as a child, and then you're drinking heavily and doing hard drugs, you're not on a road to success, and terrible things likely are going to happen to you, especially when you put them into a situation where they're with three or four other people who are in the same boat, and they're all living together in an isolated community in poverty. So most of the people, once you sit down with them and talk to them for a long time, you begin to realize that that's why they are the way they are. It doesn't excuse what they've done, and it doesn't mean that I want to spend any more time with them than I have to. But I don't think that they're wholly unredee. I would say I've met, out of the thousands of people I've dealt with maybe three people who I thought were. And I don't use the word evil because I don't think people are inherently evil, but I thought they were unredeemable people. I mean, that's a small amount out of a lot of people.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Now, I have to ask, can you tell us about those people?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, I think those people are purely psychopathic. And we talk about psychopaths in popular culture in our society as being like, oh, they're everywhere, but really they're quite rare. And I think I've met probably three that I would qualify as psychopathic people people. And yeah, you can tell when you're interacting with them. They're not. They're not like everybody else. And the majority of people aren't like that. Most people are damaged and have substance abuse issues, and that leads to horrible crimes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. You also realize that most or many career criminals are both victims and victimizers.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes. Yeah. It's just a cycle that keeps repeating and repeating. And we see that in the Nunuvu territory constantly. It's why it has the highest crime rate per capita in North America is because there's no resources for these people. And so if you're in a small community where you only get out by plane and you have no mental health services, you have no addiction services, and you've got both mental health issues and a drug problem and an alcohol problem, you know, there's no way out for you. And if you, you know, you've been abused by your father and your uncle and then you abuse your family members and it's just a cycle that it just keeps perpetuating itself. It's tragic.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What's it like to live in that situation and be trying to work with those people and help them?

[Malcolm Kempt]

It can be exhausting. And I think we see a high rate of burnout and we see a high rate of alcoholism and drug problems and mental health issues among the people, the frontline people who are working there. So nurses, doctors, police officers, lawyers. But the way I dealt with it for a long time was by taking scheduled breaks from it and by taking it one small victory at a time. If I can help a kid get registered for the hockey team in town. If I can help this guy get a passport for his daughter so she can get out anything. Just small victories. And you kind of. You take those one day at a time and you try to use those as motivation just to keep going. Because I don't think there's a solution. I never ever saw. It wasn't like we were fighting a war I thought anyone was going to win. But you just take small victory countries.

[Anya Cain]

And your book, A Gift Before Dying, gets into some of that burnout that, you know, first responders and the frontline people, as you said, can experience, which I thought was really interesting. I. I do want to ask you this probably sounds like a really dumb question, but it came to my mind just now, why are there so few resources for. For Nunavut? Why is, why is that systemic issue still in place when it's apparent that there's obviously a problem if it's such a high per capita violent crime rate?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, it's difficult in terms of infrastructure is one of the big problems because you've got 26 communities stretched out over thousands of miles of tundra, accessible only by plane, and then you have to maintain contact with them all. So you've got telecommunications issues, you've also got staffing issues. The majority of the population is uneducated and they're speaking in another language. In Iktitut is the language of the territory Inwinoctan in the western Arctic. And you have different doctrines, dialects of that. There's so many complicated issues layered one on top of the other that make that so difficult. And a lot of people say, well, it's a failure in government. They should be doing more to do that. And I don't know enough about government structure and government policy to make any comments on that. But I just know from a rational person, from a reasonable person looking at it, it's difficult from the start.

[Anya Cain]

It's a new year. That means you need a new wardrobe, and you need one without breaking the bank.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Our sponsor, Quince, makes refreshing your style easy. Their pieces are high quality and thoughtfully designed. So you're not just buying clothes. You're making a good investment in a garment that will last a long time. We love their Mongolian cashmere sweaters, their silk dresses, and their cute berets.

[Anya Cain]

Quince keeps prices down on these premium fashion staples by cutting out the middleman. We've bought a lot of their clothing and we love the way these garments feel. They hold up really well.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I love my quince wool And Mongolian cashmere sweaters and my Quince suede bomber jacket. Never been a big fashion guy, but I wear all of these regularly and I love the way they feel. The new purchase I'm most excited about getting in the new year is their cotton piquet knit overshirt. I really like the way it looks. It looks like an elevated version of what I usually wear and it seems great to help me layer and stay warm this winter. I'm really excited to get it and try it on.

[Anya Cain]

I'm excited for Kevin to model it too. When you support our sponsors, you support us. And we only support brands that we believe in. We know firsthand that Quint is the place to go for coats, sweaters, silk shirts, dresses, shoes, home goods, jewelry and more. You can get more with Quince because their prices for quality goods are significantly less than other brands.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Refresh your winter wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com msheet for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com msheet free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com msheet if you're like me, you're.

[Anya Cain]

So into true crime that you kind of get extra careful about stuff, making sure you're not followed. For instance, staying situationally aware. And of course, checking the locks on your doors and windows before bed. Better safe than sorry, right? Because we all know bad stuff can and unfortunately does happen.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, our sponsor, Simplisafe can help with your peace of mind. We've trusted Simplisafe's home security system for years. Traditional home security systems just don't cut it. They only go off after someone's breaking in. They are purely reactive.

[Anya Cain]

Simplisafe is proactive. Their AI powered cameras detect threats while they're still outside. That's when live monitoring agents jump in. They can address the intruder directly, tell them they're on camera and that the police are coming. They can even set off alarms and sirens and lights.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We love Simplisafe. We used it when we were renters. We used it when we bought our home. It is so easy to set up and allows you so much flexibility. It's reliable. We've gotten threats over our reporting before, so we take this stuff very seriously. And with Simplisafe we feel we're in great hands.

[Anya Cain]

So protect your home with SimpliSafe and get 50 and get 50% off any new system for a limited time. Just go to simplisafe.com msheet that's simplisafe.com msheet there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Rakuten Sponsor Announcer]

If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of a deal. But are you getting the deal and cash back? Rakuten shoppers do they get the brands they love? Savings and cash back. And you can get it too. Start getting cash back at your favorite stores like Target, Sephora and even Expedia. Stack sales on top of cash back and feel what it's like to know you're maximizing the savings. It's easy to use and you get your cash back sent to you through PayPal or check. The idea is simple. Stores pay Rakuten for sending them shoppers and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app or go to rakuten.com to start saving today. It's the most rewarding way to shop. That's R A K U t e n rakuten.com One thing I wanted to.

[Anya Cain]

Ask you, just going back to the book A Gift Before Dying, which again was amazing and everyone should read. I do want to say it was interesting to me. You were a defense attorney and your protagonist or one of the two protagonists in this, the one with sort of the more, you know, professional background in this is actually a police detective. What was it like working with the police officers up there? And like, did that influence your decision to sort of center that experience versus, like the defense attorney experience?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sure. I mean, I met so many police officers over the years that I've been working up there. A lot of them I'm still friends with. It's a very lonely, difficult position. And over the years that I was there, I spent a lot of time just both working with them and in the after hours, just sitting with them and talking about all the things they were encountering and the stress they were dealing with and their histories and how they got there. And so I think the character Cole in this book is an amalgamation of all of those guys and women. There's a few. You don't see too many women. I think you see more now than when I first started. But it's an amalgamation of all those.

[Anya Cain]

People like in the book. I don't think this is a spoiler, but this detective has a past and there's some controversy to it. Is that common for people to sort of end up up there?

[Malcolm Kempt]

No. A lot of times it's quite the opposite. It's officers who are starting out in their careers and want to get a placement somewhere else in the country where they really want to be. That's difficult to get to. But if they can do their time in the north, they can often then pick and choose where they want to be in the lower parts of the country. And also it's the golden handcuffs too. When you get up there, they're working overtime full time, so they're on call sometimes all the time. So they're up in the middle of the night and they're getting overtime and they're getting extra pay and vacation pay. So they're making a lot of money. So they tend to stay. But then they risk the burnout. So it's an odd place to be. But I haven't seen anyone who was or they haven't told me anyway. They were stuck up there being punished. No, but I thought that was a more. It was a more interesting way to, to frame a story.

[Anya Cain]

And then this is, this is probably going to sound like a very dumb question to Canadians, but just in terms of, you know, the United States, obviously we. County, federal, state law enforcement, local law enforcement. In terms of who is policing up there, are there different departments or is it all through, like federal police, how does that work?

[Malcolm Kempt]

It's the Royal Canadian amount of police. So the RCMP does all the policing in the north and they do have community constables in some communities. They'll train someone to work with the RCMP as a community constable, but they have limited scope of powers. There's no banned police or not. Things like you'd see in the United States.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So what kind of crimes do you see most typically up there? Like what would be an average caseload for you?

[Malcolm Kempt]

I could fly into a town like Cape Dorset every three months and there would be a full docket and I would see the gamut of when I used to go there, everything from spousal assault to sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated assaults. The more serious crimes like murder would be taken. Usually that would be a special case. They would do a hearing in, in the city, in a cal. But even on a first appearance. But you would see every, every type of violent crime you can, you can think of. Yeah. And I mean everything. Yeah. But there's not very few, very little white crawler collar crime. So where would you be?

[Anya Cain]

Like, would you like be like flying around in different communities and taking different cases or were you more static? How did that work for you?

[Malcolm Kempt]

The circuit court is really strange. So the, the court would Fly into different communities on a regular basis, on a scheduled basis. So the. The community, like Cape Dorset, might see the court three or four times a year. And they would have a set court sitting. Or if a murder had happened in Cape Dorset, you might have extra sittings. The court might fly to Cape Dorset, say, six times a year. And everyone would fly in together on a small plane, off on a chartered private plane. And they would have the judge, the clerk, the court reporter, the witnesses, everybody comes in. And we used to joke it was Air justice and it would just fly in and land. And I would fly in ahead of time as a criminal lawyer, sometimes with the prosecutor. So we go in together and then we meet with the police and we figure out who's here, what witnesses are here, get the clients to come, and then we interview everybody. But we'd often get the files, you know, a week, week beforehand sometimes. And then you're interviewing them on the fly in. And the court is held in sometimes in the high school gymnasium or in the. Wherever they can set it up. And then you would interview people. My interview room might be a bathroom. It might be a janitor's closet or. Yeah, it's very informal. And it's. Yeah, we used to say, especially in. When I first got there, it was like the Wild West. Now it's a bit more organized and they're trying to use zoom and video conferencing.

[Anya Cain]

That's incredible. Would you get to know, I guess, prosecutors pretty well, just spending so much time.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yeah. And you get to know everybody. It's so tight and so small that you can't help. Everyone would eat together and you might be. I remember once the judge put someone in jail who was responsible for fueling the plane. So then as we were leaving, we had the jail, the RCMP cells to come and refuel the plane. And like, so these things happen because it's such a small, strange environment.

[Anya Cain]

It's wild.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Prosecutors and defense attorneys both always have such crazy stories. And I remember one you mentioned to us involved a case where witnesses swore a guy shot up a car.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes. Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Can you tell us that story?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sure. And that's the story I really feel like changed my mentality about the world, just about how I viewed reality. Because this guy was charged with shooting up a car with a firearm. And the witness statements all said that he had come out of a house, fired upon the car, blew the windows out. They saw him, they heard the shots. One woman even testified that she could smell the gunpowder. And the police officer said, yeah, it Looks consistent. There's holes in the glass. The witnesses said this happened, and the client said it never happened. He never fired a gun. And I had requested a firearm analysis, and normally I don't do that because it streamlines things and saves time. And you can force the prosecution to prove that it's a firearm. And this prosecutor was being particularly difficult that week. So I said, no, you prove it's a firearm. So they sent it away to the lab, and when it came back from the lab at the preliminary inquiry, the firearm was completely inoperable and had never been fired. And so these people weren't lying, but in the moment of trauma, they had convinced themselves that this is happening. And then in conversations with themselves afterwards, reinforced this nightmare. And, you know, probably had dreams about it and retold the story about it, and then were interviewed by the cops. And then the cops have no reason not to believe them. And it looks like he shot up the car. But in the end, it never happened. And it just kind of. It flipped a switch inside my brain. That truth is a really slippery fish. In reality, our memories are so malleable. Right. It's all very fragile. And I've had witnesses on the stand, you know, recant on a cross examination. At the end of cross examination. Well, maybe I made some of it up. It's happened to me.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And those your witnesses?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes, my witness. I once did a trial where at the end of the cross examination, I had nothing further to ask, but I had brought the witness back because she was very upset. And I asked my other lord friend, do you think there's anything else I should ask? And he said, I think you're hooped. You're done. And so I stood up and I said, this is your last chance. You know, you're under oath. You're still under oath. You made it up. And she said, well, maybe parts of it. And then it all just fell apart. And I sat down and I looked like a Jedi mind trick, but it was complete. It was just complete fluke. And again, another case that just changed my whole mentality, because by the end of it, I thought, wow, she's very convincing. But it turned out she. She's fabricated. Fabricated the whole thing. Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

Wild. You talk about the burnout and just the high rate of crying out there. Is it. Was it difficult for you at some point to kind of keep going when you're just kind of facing these issues again and again?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Of course, yeah. It always is. Yeah. And I found more so than the terrible crimes and the autopsy reports and the trauma. I found the bureaucracy. People find this hard to believe. I found the crushing wheels of bureaucracy more difficult to deal with because you want to help people and you want to get these cases done, and you want things to be better, but you're stuck working in this glacial, moving, broken machine. And that's the really difficult part. I could deal with the traumatic experiences because I could actually sit with people and talk to them about them and help them work through them, but I can't make their murder trial go faster or I can't, you know, get counseling for someone when there is none. So that's the hard part.

[Anya Cain]

Is it just mostly those lack of resources. Are there other systemic issues that you face against?

[Malcolm Kempt]

There's. Yeah. It's super complicated. And every time you read about the new territory in the news, I feel like they try to oversimplify things and say this is the problem, or the root of the problem is this 50 years ago, or this. When in reality, it's an incredibly complicated problem on so many levels that. That we're not addressing on a lot of them.

[Anya Cain]

And frankly, oversimplifying that in the media would, I imagine, kind of worse than if. Because then no one's actually talking about it.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Exactly.

[Anya Cain]

It's not just a simple, let's do this.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm terrible with pronouncing names, so I apologize for that. But I wanted to ask you about a couple of cases you worked on. I understand there's limits as to what you talk about. One of them is the Eric de Jaeger case.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And before we get into that, I was struck. There was a headline of one of the articles I read about it that quoted you is saying that the. That man was not an evil monster. That kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Why is it important for the public to see criminals as human beings and not as monsters?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, I think especially in the beginning of a case, because. Especially when we're dealing the Diego case aside, when you're. Because he had pled guilty at the beginning to sexually assaulting children. But when you have a case where someone is accused of sexually assaulting children, it's very easy to forget that the accused is a person and you think child sexual assault is terrible, therefore we must deal with it. Therefore we must crush this person. But we have to prove that they actually did it first. So I always try to remind juries and judges this is a person. And although these terrible things happened in the Diego case, we still have to give him due process. We have to Give him a fair trial. And he had. I mean, 80. I think it was 80 charges in the case that I dealt with. And he had other trials beyond that where he had more charges and some of the charges he. He didn't do and some of the charges he was acquitted of. So it's important that we. We wade through it and figure out, well, what is he guilty of and what is he not guilty of? And not lose sight of the fact that although what he has done is terrible, he's still a human being. And again, I think it's when you deal with the system that's so big and ugly and broken and. What's the word I'm looking for? Not inhuman, but just doesn't care. It's uncaring. Yeah. So you try to remind the people involved in it, like the judges and the jury and stuff, to get them to care not only about the victims, but about everybody who's involved in it.

[Anya Cain]

This is kind of a weirdly specific question, but how difficult is jury selection in this territory? That sounds like kind of a nightmare.

[Malcolm Kempt]

I once had a case where on the walk back to court during the jury selection, one of the witnesses threatened one of the jurors. I've had cases where the, you know, the mother of the accused somehow slipped through onto the jury panel, and she says, but I'm his mother, so it can be difficult, especially in a town of, you know, 200 people. How do you find a jury? And sometimes we can't. Sometimes we have to take it to another community or take it to a cal when we would do it. But I had a senior lawyer when I first started who said. When I asked him for advice on my first jury trial, he said, take the first 12 cabbages that pop up in your garden. And I really. I took that to heart, and it never let me down. In the whole time of my career, you can spend forever doing all kinds of reading and pseudoscience about jury selection and picking this juror and that juror and vetting them and doing the. And a lot of times it doesn't matter. It's all about whoever. 12 people you got up there, you sell the story that you're trying to sell to them, and that's it.

[Anya Cain]

Certain issues come up in a gift before dying that sort of feel like reading it. You feel like you're really there. But they almost struck me as something that might be true issues in the region. And one of those things was, unfortunately, the issue of suicide. What does that look like within that space?

[Malcolm Kempt]

It's Very, very difficult. When I first arrived in Cape Dorset, the Beginning of the 2000s, there was a spate of suicides where four young girls had committed suicide. And that always stuck with me. And I think subconsciously that's how the first seeds of this book were planted. But it's a constant thing. And I've had coworkers, I've had clients in the middle of hearings commit suicide. I've had friends. It's just constant. It's a constant battle up. You're in a. You're in an unforgiving, isolated, cold place where substance abuse is rampant and there's a lot of poverty and overcrowding. And, you know, it's. It's inevitable that you're going to see things like crime and suicide. And it's unfortunate, but it's almost. It's almost to the level now where it's an epidemic. And I'm not sure what the numbers are recently. I haven't looked in a long time, but.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Did I mishear? Did you say you had people in the middle of a hearing commit suicide?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes. Yeah, I had someone in the middle of a hearing who. Who committed suicide. He just didn't come back to court, and. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

That's. That's really horrible. And I just, you know, and they say suicide can be like a social contagion. So especially imagine in those isolated environments, it's like.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes. Yeah. And that's always the concern is the copycat suicides, especially among young people. When you have someone commit suicide and then there's no counselors getting flown in for a week or, you know, however long it takes them to get there.

[Kevin Greenlee]

How about counselors for you?

How did you deal with all of this?

[Malcolm Kempt]

I don't know. I just dealt with it over the years. I mean, you have to, like I say, take breaks. You try to take the small victories. You try to. You have a lot of camaraderie, so you have a lot of people to support you. I've got, you know, my wife's very supportive. Good friends who were also lawyers at the time were very supportive. And I think that's the only way to get through it. And some of them don't make it. Yeah, a lot of the lawyers burn out. They quit. They drank, kill themselves. It happens. With the.

[Anya Cain]

With the drinking and the substance abuse, what does that look like? Is it mostly alcohol? Are there drugs, too?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, when I first started, it was mainly alcohol. And there's a lot of binge drinking, so you'll see massive amounts of binge Drinking. So a flood of alcohol will come into the community. And because people don't want to lose it or they want to get their hands on it, then people start drinking immediately and then they over drink. The consumption levels are remarkable in the north too, where you see people drink like an entire 40 ounce bottle and then, you know, go on a crime spree. And it's. If I drank 40 ounce bottle, I couldn't get off the floor. So I'm always like, it's, it's incredible. But now you're seeing the drugs, especially in a cow. I'm hearing, you know, meth is in, coke is in these, the harder drugs are moving in and the, the pills, prescription pills, it's becoming a huge problem and that, that's when things get incredibly dangerous. So in a way I'm kind of glad I got one, I did. Because I'm not interested in any of that.

[Anya Cain]

How the hell do you get pills up there if you can only get there through the planes?

[Malcolm Kempt]

There are daily flights from Ottawa and I've done quite a few drug cases, not as many as a lot of people. I try to stay away from them because they're quite complicated. They have a lot of legal challenges and charter stuff which I wasn't really that interested in. And people are bringing them in every way possible inside boxes of auto parts and mufflers and then coffee cans and peanut butter jars. And you have biker gangs and stuff moving in there from the south and setting up sh. Yeah, it's lucrative.

[Anya Cain]

And this was kind of an issue in the book that the, the novel gets into sort of part of the story, but no spoilers on that. But is it, is it true that like alcohol, like are there legalities around alcohol that people are flouting up there or is alcohol banned on some level or what's the situation?

[Malcolm Kempt]

There's a liquor store in Ocala, but you can, and this is when I left a few years ago, but they, you can only buy wine and beer. You can't buy any hard liquor. But then you can order hard liquor from another community in Rankine Inlet where the warehouse is, where they have no store. So it has to be flown in. And then people can bring it up, but they have to have permits. And then it all gets really complicated. But it's hard to enforce all of that. And especially when they have such a high crime rate, they've got more important things to deal with than trying to manage. But I mean some police forces do a great job of keeping liquor out of small towns. But then they have liquor committees in the towns that want to bring in liquor, but then. And are trying to control it. And it's all very complicated.

[Anya Cain]

So it's like, it's not really a lack of regulation. It sounds like it's just a lack of resources to enforce.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Exactly, yeah. And the desire, like, there's a burning desire to get liquor into the north to make money, to. To drink it. So. Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

And. And the other thing that struck me, just in terms of legalities I think especially American listeners might find interesting, is the. The book gets into this, but difficulties in dealing with offenders who are like, under 12. Is that kind of recurrent issue, like child crimes?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yeah, child crimes. Because you'll have children who. Who have no parental supervision in some of the communities who are getting into huge amounts of trouble, but you can't really do anything with them in the criminal system until they're 12. So if you have anyone under that age, there's not much you can do with them other than bring them back to their parents or report them maybe to social services. But then social services doesn't really have the resources because they're swamped with child apprehensions and trying to find kids, foster homes. And again, that's a system that's overwhelming.

[Anya Cain]

And is it fair to say that some of those crimes committed BY Kids under 12 are, you know, fairly serious?

[Malcolm Kempt]

They could be serious crimes, but it's more about if you have a pack of kids who. I remember being at the hotel in Bangner Tongue, and I see these cherries of cigarettes on the roof, and all of a sudden I come into the upstairs lounge and the kids are all in there raiding the refrigerator and pulling chairs out the window. I felt like Batman. I'm like, pulling these kids out and pushing them out the window. You know, it's like. So while it's minor stuff, it lead to larger stuff, and it leads to. I think I said in the book at one point, it can lead to mishaps. Right, where they fall off a roof or they're. They're out at night, roaming around in the middle of the night, get run over by a snowmobile or a car or. Or, you know, one kid hits another kid with a stick and he gets seriously injured. And yeah, I once saw two. This was one of the wildest things, was I was in Cape Dorset and I'd heard a woman screaming as I left the courthouse. And I. I came out up onto the hill and there was a woman lying on the ground and three children, and they were probably under the age of 10 had her down on the ground, and they were in various stages of underest. I think one of them was their underwear and rubber boots, and they were beating her on the ground with rocks. And so I intervened and then they turned on me and started throwing rocks. And then I was trying to separate them, and I got her to. Away from them and pulled them away and took her down the road. And it was a crazy situation to be in, but she had tried to stop them from breaking a window in a house and they just turned on her. And it's not to suggest that there's these feral children running around and the kids in Nunavut are out of control, but most people have a handle on their kids and they're doing a great job as parents, but there's a small percentage of people there who aren't, and there's not much you can do with them. There's no resources to help those parents or to help. Help those kids get their lives together. And that's. That's the hard part.

[Anya Cain]

That is unfortunate.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. You mentioned that you've been away from this for the few years. What, what made you make that change during the pandemic?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yeah, the restrictions. That. The restrictions in Canada became really overwhelming, and we couldn't fly at all. We couldn't do anything. And. And at one point, I was traveling to the north and I was spending two weeks in a hotel room every time I wanted to do any surf work. So I felt like I was in a jail cell. And it just. Yeah, my mental health, I thought, this isn't feasible anymore. And then I was doing everything remotely because they decided, well, we're going to do everything by phone. And as you can imagine, you've got people in three different communities and witnesses testifying, and me in Newfoundland trying to do everything by the phone. And we can't hear this person and that person. And I was like, this just isn't feasible. And at that point, I was burned out. And I was really interested in. In writing. And my wife said, do it, go for it. Yeah. So I quit.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Even before law school, you said you were working in publishing or not in writing. Had writing been a consistent interest for you over the years?

[Malcolm Kempt]

It had been, but not necessarily fiction writing. I had been involved in editing a music magazine, and I edited my university newspaper. And like, I did a lot of journalistic work in that sense. And then after law school, I ended up getting into law, but I was always taking workshops. Every chance I could get, I'd take a writing workshop. And I was lucky Enough to get. I took ones with Chuck Palahniuk and Richard Thomas and some really great authors, Clyde Clevenger. And it was great. And every time I'd get a bit of cash and I'd take a course and online or a correspondence, and I'd do a dialogue course or a writing course, and it was great, but it was always in the background as kind of a hobby or a pipe drop until the pandemic. And then I said, well, let's do this.

[Anya Cain]

You mentioned the seeds of this story getting planted sort of earlier in your career, but when did it really form for you is like, this is this kind of mystery that I want to tell.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, 10 years ago, I had written a draft of an that incorporated a bunch of parts of this, and I had written other ideas. Like, I had a different novel and this. These short stories. And so everything. I had it all in piles. And then during the pandemic, I kind of cannibalized a bunch of stuff that I had had and took out all the things that I really loved. And then I sorted out, okay, how can I structure this mystery? And I have my good friend Andy Mehari. He's my best friend. He's my partner in writing crime. I call him, but he loves crime novels, and he's a great editor, and he's my beta reader. And so every time I call him, I'd say, what do you think of this? What do you think of this idea? And, like, we hash things out, and it was great. Yeah, it was fun.

[Anya Cain]

One thing I loved about your book was I felt very immersed in the place, with the people, and felt like I could see, feel, experience all that. But you also were able to combine that with just an incredible, very propulsive mystery story. So how did you balance that? Because I think a lot of readers wouldn't be familiar with this environment. So balancing kind of of taking us there with actually moving everything forward with the mystery.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, it's funny, I never really read a lot of crime novels before I got into this. And that's where Andy was really helpful. He loves crime novel, but I was reading everything else. But I did love crime shows. Like the first season of True Detective. I'd watched it so many times. And actually, it's strange about the first season. I thought they were inside my brain. I was just like, I love a lot of the references, the other books, and I love Robert Chambers and Lovecraft and all these older horror stuff, which there was little tidbits of that. All.

[Anya Cain]

Carcosa.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yes, Carcosa. And all that stuff, like Ambrose Beers and all that stuff. So, yeah, in terms of the plotting, that came a little later, that was a little harder for me. The setting was easy because I wanted it to be like Algernon Blackwood or Lovecraft, whereas it was very dark and immersive. But the propulsive plot, I had to work a lot harder. And I had to think about shows that I love, like True Detective and some of the darker noir TV series and stuff like that. And a lot of the books. I had read a lot of crime books by that point, and, you know, I studied those pretty hard to figure out what works and what doesn't work.

[Anya Cain]

Was your legal background helpful in terms of, you know, kind of understanding what police could or could not do or like, you know, kind of the limitations of conducting an investigation on Worth?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sure. Yeah. And I tried not to put too much of that stuff in there. I didn't. I tried to avoid anything that was too technical. And sometimes things don't work. And I tell aspiring writers, you know, don't get hung up on that stuff. Like, if your plot requires this, but you say, oh, well, police policy would require them to be held for six hours before that would happen. Who cares? And then I read other authors. Where I saw. I read in the woods is Tana French, and in the back of her book, it says, the Dublin Murder Squad doesn't even exist in real life. They don't even have a murder squad. And I was like, that's fantastic. So, like, yeah, you can't get too hung up on it. It just can't be unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, right. Or if you. You're doing something different, you have to justify why in the story.

[Anya Cain]

So tell us about, you know, like, you mentioned kind of the pandemic being the crucial, maybe, like, pivoting point, but how did you go from being an aspiring writer to actually making this happen?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Well, I had. I owe a lot to Richard Thomas. He's an author out of Chicago, who. Who I had taken a few workshops with. And then I had done some work with him for him, and he really inspired me to get writing with short stories. And I had written a bunch of short stories, and then I had written one with him. He'd asked me to write one with him, and it ended up getting into a big anthology with Stephen King and a bunch of other people. And at that point I realized, oh, I could do this. And then I won an award in Newfoundland. It's called the Percy James Award. So it's the best unpublished manuscript script. And again, I was like, okay, so other people who know books, they think this is okay. So then it kind of gave me a little more confidence. And no one in Canada was really interested in the book that I had talked to in terms of publishers or agents or anything like that. So my wife said, you know, go to the US and then I got in touch with Gideon Pine in New York and he was fabulous. And he said, this is what I think you need to do to make this novel great. And so I just buckled down and did it and then sent it back to him. And the next thing you know, yeah, here we are.

[Anya Cain]

Obligatory shout out to Gideon Pine.

[Malcolm Kempt]

He's our agent.

[Anya Cain]

Who is also our agent.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Gideon rocks.

[Anya Cain]

He is fabulous. That's amazing. What was. I mean, I'm just curious, like, what were some of that feedback to like, get it in shape for like some of the American publishers?

[Malcolm Kempt]

One of the things I. I'm trying to think of exactly what he said. I kept the sheet. I had this scrambled, crazy sheet of notes that I took while he was. And I'm going to frame it probably at some point. One of the things was more heart. Like, the book needed more heart, more balance of heart because it is very grim and unflinching and dark. And so I tried to inject that in there and just some logistical things about, well, you know, this would make more sense or that would make more sense. And it all totally did. And just punching it up, just, you know, I think that was the word he used. Punch up some of these sentences, punch up these paragraphs, like, make it sing. And so that's what I spent three months. I. I googled it, I think, at the time. And I said, how long should I give it before I give it back to an agent? Three months. Just as arbitrary date. And so I said, okay. And I wrote it on my calendar. I said, okay, I'm going to go. I got up every morning at 5:00 clock or 4:00 clock, and I would write for a few hours every morning and rewrite everything and work on it. Yeah, that's incredible.

[Anya Cain]

Also very Gideon advice.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

Can you just tell us a little bit about what a Gift before dying is about?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Sure. It's about a failed investigator who gets exiled to a remote community in the north. And despite his best efforts, his whole life is a failure. His marriage, he's estranged from his daughter, his career is a mess. And when this young girl, who he's really sworn to take care of, dies in what he feels is not a suicide, he sees solving her Mystery as redemption. And he finds her brother as. So you have two characters, the older man and the younger boy. And both of them are seeking justice for her and redemption for themselves. And it's all about hope in a really dark place, I think is the big theme in it.

[Anya Cain]

I really wanted to give them both a hug. And I feel like you did.

[Malcolm Kempt]

And not to spoil the ending, but did you like the ending? Always. Oh, you did. Okay, good, good, good. Because I've heard. I've heard mixed reviews on the ending, and I'm curious. I'm always.

[Anya Cain]

I was like, okay, I'm not going to spoil anything. I was low key, mad at you, but I was like, I salute you. I'm gonna. I'm never gonna forget that. And that's a good ending.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Oh, good. I'm glad.

[Anya Cain]

It was really good. I, again, I wanted to give all these people a hug. I felt so bad for them, but it was really gripping. I couldn't put it down. And I think you felt the same way I did.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

But I kept on, you know, we only got one copy, so we kept on, like, I read it first and then I kept on being like, when are you done?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Like, I should have gave you two.

[Anya Cain]

No, you're fine. I mean, honestly, it made it kind of funny because I just kept on pushing. Kevin, let me see.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, we talked about your legal career, your literary career. Let's talk about what's truly important, your interest in comic books.

[Malcolm Kempt]

Oh, yes, yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

How did you get interested in comic books? What comics do you like?

[Malcolm Kempt]

I lived in a really rural, rural area, and I used to travel to the city when I lived in Nova Scotia in Halifax. And it was a comic book shop there, Strange Adventures. And I still think it's one of the best comic books shops in North America. And they. It was Cal who worked there who first introduced me to comics. And I used to come and I used to buy like a laundry basket full every time, take them back to the rural area, just devour them. Now I don't read much in the way of comics, new comics, but I always fall back to the old comics. I mean, and I had subscriptions because we could get them in the rural area, but you could only get them to the major titles. So you get like Avengers and, you know, West Coast Avengers and Punisher and Spider man and, like, you get all those. And then I would go in and buy like the old horror comics or graphic novels. So it was always just like. And I used go into Cal shop and buy first, first issues. So one One, one, one, one. I just buy a ton of ones and then we'll see what sticks. And. Yeah, I love it all, man. It's great. Like, we had talked before, I think, about Criminal and Fatale and the Brubaker, those series. I love those. And. Yeah, I don't know, I was never really into the, what I call the hokey superhero stuff sometimes, but I got a soft spot for some of the. Yeah, I love it. But I can talk comics all day. I love.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, I can too. We love comics. Yeah, I'm working on her.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I'm reading Dick Tracy now for him, but. But, yeah, now I was. I was not into comics.

[Malcolm Kempt]

I'm not reading Tracy.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, it's really weird, but I love it.

[Malcolm Kempt]

But.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, no, that's fun, though.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm also curious. We're recording this on an afternoon in December. We're in Indiana. It's snowing outside.

For us it's very, very cold.

But for you, is this like summer?

[Malcolm Kempt]

I don't. Yeah, this is not too bad. You know, even in Newfoundland, like Newfoundland now, I don't know what the temperature is there now in Fahrenheit today, but it's just sideways rain and it's freezing all the time through the winter. And the winter is incredibly long in Newfoundland. And then the Arctic is so much colder. Like I've been up there and it's minus 50, minus 60, like in pond Newland and some of these high, high communities. It's wild and it never seems to end. So then I come down here, here, and there's not much wind. It's lovely. The snow is falling and everyone's so Christmasy here. The lights are out, so it's perfect.

[Anya Cain]

Let's go to the beach now. Yeah, this is.

[Malcolm Kempt]

This is.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, this is.

[Malcolm Kempt]

I don't mind this at all. I'll take this. All I'll want to.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I'll ask the question I always hated when we got asked, which is what's next?

[Malcolm Kempt]

Oh. So, yeah, I had a meeting a couple weeks ago with people at Crown. I talked about a second thriller. It won't be related to this at all. It won't be in the Arctic. And I had pitched maybe three or four ideas and I think we figured out which one it's going to be. And I don't know if I can say where it's going to be said or what it's going to be, but it will be. Trying to think of how I would describe it. It'll be a detective story. It'll be a police procedural. It will have some supernatural undertones, and it will be a complicated mystery. Yeah, it'll. Yeah. Won't be that much different from this, but a completely different setting and different, different characters.

[Anya Cain]

I cannot wait to read it.

[Malcolm Kempt]

I'm excited. I'm like, I'm having fun right now writing it, so it's good.

[Anya Cain]

Please, please come back on our show.

[Malcolm Kempt]

And talk to us about it.

[Anya Cain]

Anything else that we didn't ask you about? Was there any other questions?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I don't think so.

[Anya Cain]

Any other things that we did not ask you about that you wanted to mention?

[Malcolm Kempt]

This is a great way to start my first podcast. It's fabulous. Thank you so much for having me.

[Anya Cain]

Thank you for coming on.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Thank you so much to Malcolm for coming on the show. He's great. We really appreciate him and we wish him the best of luck today because the day we are releasing this episode is actually the day A Gift Before Dying is officially released.

[Anya Cain]

Thanks also to Gideon Pine for introducing us. We'd strongly encourage you all to get Malcolm's book. We think people who enjoy crime fiction and thrillers and especially icy settings will love it. Ask your local bookstore to order it for you.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You.

[Anya Cain]

We'll also include some links to Penguin, Random House and Amazon in our show notes if you'd like to order it there.